The Broken Country: On Trauma, a Crime, and the Continuing Legacy of Vietnam
Oct 2020 · University of Georgia Press
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About this ebook
An attack in a grocery store parking lot launches an examination of the Vietnam War's dark legacy—by the author of The Night My Mother Met Bruce Lee.
The Broken Country uses a violent incident that took place in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 2012 as a springboard for examining the long-term cultural and psychological effects of the Vietnam War. To make sense of the shocking and baffling incident—in which a young homeless man born in Vietnam stabbed a number of white men purportedly in retribution for the war—Paisley Rekdal draws on a remarkable range of material and fashions it into a compelling account of the dislocations suffered by the Vietnamese and also by American-born veterans over the past decades. She interweaves a narrative about the crime with information collected in interviews, historical examination of the arrival of Vietnamese immigrants in the 1970s, a critique of portrayals of Vietnam in American popular culture, and discussions of the psychological consequences of trauma. This work allows us to better understand transgenerational and cultural trauma and advances our still complicated struggle to comprehend the war.
"A moving and often gripping meditation on the fallout of war, from violence and racism to melancholy and trauma."—Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Refugees
"Assembling a remarkable range of materials and testimonies, she shows us both the persistence of war's trauma and how we might more ethically imagine those it harms."—Beth Loffreda, author of Losing Matt Shepard: Life and Politics in the Aftermath of Anti-Gay Murder
"A compact, thoughtful debut addressing violence, immigrant identity, and the long shadow of the Vietnam War.... A poignant, relevant synthesis of cultural studies and true-crime drama.— Kirkus Reviews
The Broken Country uses a violent incident that took place in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 2012 as a springboard for examining the long-term cultural and psychological effects of the Vietnam War. To make sense of the shocking and baffling incident—in which a young homeless man born in Vietnam stabbed a number of white men purportedly in retribution for the war—Paisley Rekdal draws on a remarkable range of material and fashions it into a compelling account of the dislocations suffered by the Vietnamese and also by American-born veterans over the past decades. She interweaves a narrative about the crime with information collected in interviews, historical examination of the arrival of Vietnamese immigrants in the 1970s, a critique of portrayals of Vietnam in American popular culture, and discussions of the psychological consequences of trauma. This work allows us to better understand transgenerational and cultural trauma and advances our still complicated struggle to comprehend the war.
"A moving and often gripping meditation on the fallout of war, from violence and racism to melancholy and trauma."—Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Refugees
"Assembling a remarkable range of materials and testimonies, she shows us both the persistence of war's trauma and how we might more ethically imagine those it harms."—Beth Loffreda, author of Losing Matt Shepard: Life and Politics in the Aftermath of Anti-Gay Murder
"A compact, thoughtful debut addressing violence, immigrant identity, and the long shadow of the Vietnam War.... A poignant, relevant synthesis of cultural studies and true-crime drama.— Kirkus Reviews
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About the author
PAISLEY REKDAL is the Poet Laureate of Utah and a professor of English at the University of Utah. She has been honored with a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, and a Fulbright Fellowship to South Korea. Her work has been published in numerous anthologies, including Legitimate Dangers and the Pushcart Prize Anthology.
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